


Please Mr. Robin

by brejamison



Series: Catching Dick Grayson [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Bruce Wayne is Trying, Bruce Wayne is a Bad Parent, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Depression, Dick is depressed, Donna is the Best Friend, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23234512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brejamison/pseuds/brejamison
Summary: In which Dick loses it before his GCPD swearing-in ceremony. Donna and Tommy Edwards pick him back up.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Donna Troy
Series: Catching Dick Grayson [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670530
Comments: 3
Kudos: 99





	Please Mr. Robin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anonymous on Tumblr](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Anonymous+on+Tumblr).



Three hours. Three hours - or one-hundred eighty minutes - until he was to be sworn in as the most recent detective of the GCPD in front of a small crowd of family, friends, and press with Police Commissioner Jim Fucking Gordon doing the honors. In three hours his nine months spent as a badge would be behind him. He was about to officially become a suit, officially join the side of the law - the side of justice and visibility. Scrutiny and investigation. Working _with_ the badges and the last remaining vestiges of Dent's justice system rather than for or, in most cases, against them. He was about to become a good and proper, upstanding citizen of Gotham's limelight; there was no room in him anymore for vigilantes or their justice. In three hours, he would become something new - something _more_ than Robin.

Bruce hadn't been invited. Then he had been. Then Dick had rescinded it. Eventually, he just fucking sent the invitation and then spent the following two days in his bathtub laboring over if he had made the right decision. Thinking about all the things Bruce would say if he did come. Stressing over all the things he would say when he didn't. Dick's relationship with Bruce was complicated, that much was certain. It was thin ice; suddenly the man he had grown up under was a spiderweb of cracks in his icy armor. Dick was walking on eggshells around him and he was on the completely opposite side of the city.

Dick didn't doubt for a second Bruce knew exactly what he was doing, though. Gotham's Golden Boy joining the police department? Finally entering the justice system to keep more kids like him from getting orphaned? And right here, on their own soil, no less? Not only that but now he was being promoted to Detective in record time. It was unheard of, remarkable, and the title of every bi-weekly tabloid for the last ten months. 

Little did they know, their Golden Boy was hyperventilating and shaking and debating very heavily whether to press send on the phone number he had dialed. Donna was, of course, the first person he invited. Though, the conversation was more of an interrogation on her part, demanding date and time and specifics of what to wear - something proud but not flirty. Something dignified but dear god please no pearls. She wasn't a pearl type of woman, and they weren't the pearl type of friends. Inviting Alfred and Barbara wasn't even a question. Dawn and Hank needed more deliberation, though, and Donna finally convinced him it would be a nice gesture even if they weren't expected to show up. 

That had been a good night. An evening of pizza and Crosby, invitations scattered around the apartment like landmines. Donna had rolled her eyes and called him the worst bridezilla she had ever known. And she had been a bridesmaid for [Jade Nguyen](https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Jade_Nguyen_\(New_Earth\)) of all people. 

Two and three-quarters of an hour until it all came crashing down around him. Turns out, Rome didn't fall in one night. It came down in one-hundred and sixty-eight minutes from now after Jim Gordon made his speech. After the pleasantries were given. After Dick raised his right hand, made an oath, and they gave him a shiny new badge for all of his troubles. 

Alfred would come. Barbara would be front row with a camera. Dawn and Hank appreciated the gesture (he hoped). Donna was on the way - a mere phone call away.

When he couldn't breathe anymore and the thoughts got too loud, the circles they ran in too tight, and his head spun trying to think past them, he called her. 

_"Hey, we're still another thirty minutes out but should be there in just in time to sit with Barbara and the others."_ Alfred. Not Bruce. Bruce wouldn't come.

He didn't respond, just hyperventilated into the mic as the sound of her voice sent him spinning the opposite direction. 

_"Dick?"_

"I...I can't... Donna, I just - I don't deserve..."

 _"Are you at your apartment?"_ She almost sounded like she had expected this. Like she had been through this script so many times before, a rehearsal wasn't necessary. (And she had. They both knew public speaking, crowds, brown-nosing and ceremonies weren't his thing. Neither was healthy coping mechanisms and _I love you, but you need therapy, Dick. From someone other than me, preferably._

"No, don't... Don't come."

 _"I'm on the way."_ She turned away to relay the situation and he lowered himself to his back, flat on the floor. His shoulders ground into the cold wood as he gasped for every short breath he could get. He had been doing so well. It had been so long without an attack. But, like a hurricane looming over the horizon, all he needed was the right ingredients and the perfect storm would be churning within him in no time. It never really went away; just got less likely for a season.

_"Dick, get up and go put on a record. I'm 25 minutes out. Which one were you playing last?"_

He hesitated. "I... I don't..."

_"Go. Check."_

He did, squinting at the label. "Crosby." From the other night. He hadn't changed it, hadn't had the strength to finalize his decisions by flipping the vinyl over. Also hadn't had time, what with a beat to walk and interviews to lie through and paperwork to put off. 

_"Star Dust again?"_

"Yeah."

_"Okay. Find Mr. Sun."_

"By Edwards?"

 _"Yes, by Edwards. That's the one with the, y'know,_ sing to her _..."_

"...Mr. Robin, yeah," he chuckled sadly. " _And Mrs. Moonlight; put in a word for me_." It was a family favorite, [Please Mr. Sun by Tommy Edwards](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aWoXWAMCI4). Something his mom would hum under her breath and his dad was bellow from the tippy top of the center ring. Dick himself had done his first triple somersault to _whisper to her, Mr. Wind_. 

It was third in the pile, his fingertips finding the well-loved sleeve like the hands of a lover stroking a familiar cheek. 

_"Put it on,"_ Donna instructed. _"Play it."_

"It'll be loud," he whined, slipping it into place. Confrontational bastard. Always arguing, even when she was talking him down from tearing himself apart before his big day.

_"Good. Blast it. Who gives a shit if your neighbors complain?"_

.,.,.,.,.,.,.,

By the time she got to his apartment, using the key he always kept hidden in the doorframe like the human disaster he was, he was slumped against the end table in his living room, temple resting uncomfortably against the record player. The record spun, Tommy Edwards' tinny voice filling the space. 

She sighed, but kept her pity to herself. Pity wasn't what he needed right now, though he knew he had it and more to spare. Dick dragged his eyes to meet hers, pulled in like two stray comets caught in the gravity of her blazing sun. 

"Hey," she greeted tiredly but not unkindly, dumping her purse by the door. She kicked off her shoes and they landed somewhere.

He turned away bashfully, sorrowful and embarrassed. 

"You're not gonna tell me I look nice?" Hiking her short dress up, she sat cross-legged next to him. Back pressed to the wall and shoulder wedged into his side.

"You look nice." 

"I know." She opened her arms and he leaned into them greedily. Despite their height differences, they fit together like two pieces of a puzzle. Years of practice had made squeezing his lengthy frame into her easy, as familiar as crawling into bed or wearing his favorite sweater. Except those didn't hug back. "You get it all out by now?" she wondered, stroking his back. 

With a silent cry and hitch in his breathing, another wave of tears rolled down his cheeks and he turned into her deeply, squeezing with neediness. He could squeeze as tightly as he wanted and she wouldn't bruise. It was a limit they discovered years ago and he had taken full advantage of it ever since. Because sometimes his hands could be too rough. Sometimes his fists hurt as much as his words. And she could take them all, matching and redistributing until he was sober (back to his right mind) enough to apologize. 

She checked her watch even as she pulled him closer. "You've got little over two and a half hours. Have you eaten?" 

His head shook against her shoulder. 

"Of course you haven't."

He sniffed and she recognized the sound of it like the chorus of a famous song. Dick Grayson was a man with many hearts. The kind of person who gave a piece of himself to everyone he loved. It left him full of holes, though, when they inevitably broke his heart, shattered his soul, used and abused him because he deserved better. And those holes had very distinct sounds whenever he tried in vain to fill them with salty tears. This one was about Bruce. Because it was fucking _always_ about Bruce. 

"Come on, you invited him. You sent the invite. What he does with it isn't on you," she cooed, shifting so he could curl more comfortably against her. 

"He's... he's not going to - he won't come." 

She made a face. "Probably not. Probably because he thinks you don't want him there." 

"I don't." 

And wasn't _that_ something she had heard on repeat so many times in the last four weeks. Almost as if, the more he said it, the truer it would become. 

She patted him on the back exactly twice. "Sure, Bird Boy. Whatever you say." 

"That one's my fav'rite." 

"I know."

They sat in quiet for a long moment. Occasionally, the crying would start again and he would start muttering nonsensically. She had a lifetime of experience translating broken Dick Grayson tears, though, and would reply expertly and calmly, soothing him sometimes and often letting him ramble his thoughts away.

Eventually, she checked her watch again. Two-ish hours to go. "I'm going to make you some food. And you are going to eat it. If you want to cry until it's done, fine, but once you eat you aren't allowed to anymore, got it? Not until we get through this stupid ceremony, at least."

He gulped down a swallow, nodding reluctantly. "You don't have to go." 

"Oh no. I want to hear what good old Jimbo has to say. And to you of all people." Went without saying that the Commissioner would be more than pleased to have a Bat on the force - officially, at least. It was a conversation Dick had had in length with him before being offered the promotion. Being a badge was good for the young man, but it wasn't where he would be best utilized. Besides, a suit would transfer easier if (when) he did end up leaving Gotham. And also because Jim wanted to be sure Dick wasn't doing all of this as a _fuck you_ to his old man. And Dick wasn't about to work for a man who would promote him solely because of his vigilante ties. 

"Good." Rising to her feet, Donna reset the record needle and started the song over. She hummed along, shoving her shoes out of the way. The kitchen was stocked with dust and barren cupboards, but she found a leftover deli sandwich in the fridge that would have to do. And one cupcake. "Cupcake?" 

Dick chuckled, wiping his eyes and resuming his position against the wall. He turned the record player down several notches and timed his breathing to the rhythm. "From Mr. Craps." 

"Mr. Craps made you one single cupcake?" 

"Left over from his... grandson's graduation? Thought - said he thought I was looking a little thin." 

Donna smirked, slamming the sandwich into the microwave. "Knew I liked that man." 

"He's sweet." 

Dick cried until his lunch was ready. At which point he wiped his eyes, took a long second to settle his breathing, then slowly munched on his meal. It wasn't enough to make him full, but for his queasy stomach, it was just enough to satisfy. Donna helped herself to half of the cupcake, swiping a generous dollop of frosting off the top. They toasted their halves. It took another long moment for the war between Dick's heart and head to decide if he deserved the sugary treat. In the end, his sweet tooth won (like it always did) and he enjoyed the stale piece of cake a lot more than he expected to. 

As she gathered the dishes, she instructed him to go take a shower. It didn't matter if he already had today; he needed another one. And hurry too, because they would need to leave soon if he was going to get there on time. He agreed silently, because arguing would be pointless, and emotionally scrubbed the tears and snot from his face. He almost broke down again in the sanctuary of hot water and soap, but the weight in his stomach reminded him he wasn't allowed to until this whole ordeal was other with. He sucked it up and emerged shortly after, dressed in a sharply pressed uniform, cap under his arm, hair swept nicely to its proper position, and no longer looking like he wanted to die. 

She surprised him with a sneak photo from her phone and said Alfred would be proud of his lines. 


End file.
